Why I needed a frugal reset….

I wanted to share a little bit today about why I’ve had to give myself a bit of a shake recently and really reflect on my ‘frugal’ lifestyle. 

A bit of background first… 

I have a full time job which is reasonably well paid, the only debt that I have is my mortgage and I like to think I’m pretty savvy so have always had good deals on most of our monthly bills (energy, broadband, insurance etc).

So in theory, I can afford to not be frugal. 

And over the last twelve months or so, I feel like I’ve gradually become less frugal which I didn’t really notice until recently as the bad habits just kind of sneaked back in bit by bit. 

But then this last week or so, I’ve sorted the interest rate on my mortgage and that’s made me look at my other bills which in turn made me realise that I wasn’t as ‘on it’ as I usually have been when it came to making sure we had the best deals. 

That made me think about a few other things that I’ve let slip over the last year or so. 

I realise that I’m very lucky with the position that I’m in but that doesn’t mean that I should waste money! Being frugal was always something that I prided myself on and my definition of frugal was always making sure that I had the best deal for everything and not wasting money on things I didn’t need so I could have extra for the things I really wanted. 

I’m not sure where I lost track of that belief. 

But I’ve had a stern word with myself and am now firmly back on track!

Here’s a couple of little things that I’ve been doing over the past year that aren’t frugal and what I’m doing about them now to go back to my old frugal habits…

I work from the office once a week these days and I’ve found myself buying my drinks and lunch in the staff canteen rather than taking my own in. If I buy two cans of Pepsi Max a day, that’s £2 a week and then lunch on top of that is another £4. That sounds like a smallish amount weekly so it’s easy to justify that it’s OK but actually it’s £300 a year which would be a weekend away, or three weeks food shopping, or even two months energy bills. It’s wasted money.  

I’ve got a new water bottle (thanks to a charity shop find of a £4 Chillys bottle) and plan to start taking leftovers to work or making my own lunch. 

I didn’t recheck our insurance renewals last year as I just thought it was too much hassle for a few pounds worth of savings. I know, I’m hanging my head in shame as we speak. 

I’ve listed the renewal dates for all of our insurance policies this year in a notebook and added the dates to my calendar app to make sure that I shop about before renewing anything this year.

I rarely meal plan these days and I have justified that to myself by telling myself that it would be difficult to meal plan and stick to it because my partner works shifts and we often have extra bodies for tea with the four kids we have between us. 😁

I was just being lazy here! I can easily plan around the shifts and the two younger kids being here and as for the older two, I can either stretch what we have or simply cook something else quickly. I have started batch cooking again so I will (hopefully) always have something in that I can rustle up at the last minute, but also I have freezer food in that will easily feed them if they turn up last minute. I could tell them I need notice but I want them to just feel happy turning up so I will never do that.

Little things like using cashback apps, keeping my cards up to date in Airtime Rewards,using Swagbucks regularly and being generally switched on around how I can be making some extra money. 

These things just take a little time and a bit of focus so I’m back on track here!

There’s so many more things I could probably list but I don’t think you need to hear all of my frugal failings. 

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